Why Miracles Should Not Be Used as a Reason to Believe in a Religion

post by Yitz (yitz) · 2022-03-23T20:53:58.155Z · LW · GW · 6 comments

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Note: This is part of a series of shorter essays I plan to write exploring my thoughts and opinions on various topics relating to philosophy, religion, and science. I will try to keep things simple. Feedback is welcome.

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Human testimony is not sufficient grounds for the belief in a supernatural event.

Why?

Because humans are not perfect.

Just because a large number of people believe in something does not mean that the event actually occurred, or that it was caused by a deity. The value of a witness to a miracle really boils down to a question of trust. If you trust the witness, you are more likely to trust his report of the miracle.

The issue here is that there are a number of reasons why we might not trust the accuracy of the report.

First, humans are fallible.

One such reason is that memories are often edited or changed over time, often unconsciously. This can be due to a number of factors, such as the desire to remember events in a certain way, the influence of other people’s memories of the same event, or the introduction of false information after the fact. In fact, research has shown that it is very common for people to have different memories of the same event, and that even eyewitness testimony is often inaccurate.

Another reason why people’s memories can be inaccurate is because of something called “confabulation”. This is essentially when a person fills in gaps in their memory with information that they believe to be true, even if it is not. This can be due to a variety of factors, such as the person not being able to remember the event clearly, or wanting to make themselves appear more interesting or heroic.

Third, we are often subject to confirmation bias—that is, we are more likely to overlook evidence that contradicts our beliefs, or to see evidence that supports it when it is not there.
The more we believe a thing to be true, the more likely we are to think we are seeing it, whether we are or not.

Finally, just as we are susceptible to confirmation bias, we are also susceptible to social pressure.
The more we believe a thing to be true, the more likely we are to downplay inconsistencies in reports from others, or to attempt to rationalize them away.
This is particularly problematic when the people we are trusting are people we have a strong positive relationship with, as this makes us even more likely to be less skeptical of their claims.

When we put all of this together, we see that we have a very hard time coming to trust a report that a miracle has occurred.
In order to believe that a miracle has occurred, we have to believe that someone was able to reliably observe it and report it accurately, and since humans are not perfect, it is almost impossible to prove that this has occurred.
We simply cannot know everything that the person observed, or how they interpreted it, and thus we cannot know if the report we have is accurate.
This is particularly problematic when the person reporting the miracle is someone we have a strong relationship with, as it means that we are more likely to trust their testimony, even if our trust is unwarranted.

So, what does this mean for reports of religious miracles? It means that, unfortunately, we cannot trust them as much as we would like to. This is because, due to the reasons listed above, it is very likely that many (if not most) reports of religious miracles are inaccurate. This does not mean that miracles do not happen, or that people never experience religious phenomena, but it does mean that we should be very skeptical of reports of religious miracles.

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